Keeping the postal service up & running, one stamp at a time. Usually silly, sometimes cranky, occasionally a mix of the two.

Snoopy

Happy New Year! To mark the occasion, I send these cool Snoopy postcards to my Snoopy-loving postpals in England, Japan, & the U.S.

Nengajō is a huge deal in Japan–but just try finding New Year’s postcards (or even standard greeting cards) here in the U.S.! In fact, I had to get these through a Japan-based e-tailer. I sure do wish the custom would catch on here.

Last time, I posted two Hawaiian Kids cards I received way back in January. Now I’ll show the back sides of those cards, and yet another piece of mail received at about the same time from my post pal in Hawaii. Let’s start with a look at this Peanuts Christmas card!

Now a look at the backsides of the afore-mentioned postcards. Look at this awesome stamp-and-sticker work!

It’s almost the Year of the Dog, and here I am, finally sharing the card I received for the Year of the Rooster. Shame on me!

Cooool envelope work here–and look at those classic stamps! Loving the Little Nemo & Bringing Up Father! When I was a kid, that second one was still hanging in there, & running in the Honolulu Advertiser! Or maybe not, but I think so.

One of the upsides of being so horribly behind in cataloging my received postcards is that I am at least able to go through the accumulated cards (well, the ones that I can currently find) and do some grouping by theme. This time, it’s some toon-tastic cards, received through all of my current avenues: Postcrossing, Postcrossing Forum, Postcard United, swap-bot, and postcard pals!

First up: B. Kliban! I’m always thrilled to find Kliban Cats in my mail. They surrounded me when I grew up: they were marketed on t-shirts, bed sheets, soap dispensers, calendars, and on & on. The world today could use more Kliban cats. This came to me from a Postcrosser in Cedar Hill, Texas, who saw cards like this one in my favorites.

Every time I look at this image, I notice a new detail.

This Snoopy postcard looks like a piece of original art! The Postcrosser who sent it to me tells me she bought it during a visit to the Snoopy Museum in Tokyo, Japan.

I love, love, love, the style of very-early-era Peanuts art. I was thrilled to get this Lucy (my spirit animal) card from my post pal Cindi in Hawaii. Be sure to scroll down for the stickers, washi tape–and a great Disney Queen of Hearts stamp! And while you’re down there, do be sure to spend time with all of the other stamps, stickers, & washi tape. This is a good post for both sides of the cards I’ve received!

Time to move from Peanuts to Totoro. This wonderful scene came to me from a Postcrosser in Astoria, Oregon, who writes:

I am also a huge fan of Asian cuisine. We lived in Singapore for two years–yum! Ate in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Australia So much good food–love the crosss-cultural stuff. And lucky now to live on the West Coast–foodie heaven. Food carts are boss. Last weekend ate at a place called DJ’s Vinyl Vegan–it was fabulous. It was part of our weekend eat-fest in Astoria. Also had Scandinavian food at the Midsummer Festival. This weekend too hot to go out. Hope you are getting some good eats!

The other Totoro card came to me from Malaysia via Postcard United, from a sender who tells me that ol’ Totes is their favorite cartoon character.

Next up: a pair of Finding Nemo cards. Let me interrupt myself to say that I was at Disney California Adventure last week, and after many visits having ignored the attraction, I finally went to “Turtle Talk with Crush,” and let me tell you–I am never going to skip over it again! Hilarious! Reminded me of a Paula Poundstone performance (and I’ve been to many).

Okay, the cards. The first of them came to me via regular Postcrossing, from Minsk, Belarus, with the following message:

I am a senior student at Linguistic University where I study the English and French languages and American and British Country Studies. I like traveling, reading books, and birds. I have a monk parakeet (Rudy). He can talk.

The other Nemo card came to me from St. Paul, Minnesota, via a swap-bot “Currently Reading” trade. The sender had a few books going at once, and she listed them for me:

Okay, the last 3 are Sanrio: Hello Kitty Country! I sometimes enter Postcrossing Forum tags where every other person is to receive a Hello Kitty card. Since I do not have any to send, I enter on the receiving rounds…and then promptly say that I’d really love to receive Badtz-Maru (or any one of several other ancillary characters). This first card, sent from somewhere in Japan, stars Badtz!

The big Hello Kitty card came from Lausanne, Switzerland, and the smaller one made its way from Nakatsu, Ōita, Japan.

Hey, we made it through! now enjoy the stamps, stickers, washi tape, and a few of the messages. Let me know what you liked! I feel really accomplished right now, to have logged 10 more of my back postcards.

13 postcards this time, all toon-related. Still playing catch-up, so while some of these are newly-received, some came in months & months ago. We have a combination of Postcard Forum tags, and incomings from postal pals of mine. Let’s get started, so we can get finished!

I love this Disney duck art, with Christmas greetings in Swedish. It came to me from Finland via Postcrossing Forum. I remember it was a very confusing parcel to receive: an envelope filled with many postcards, each with a tiny message denoting a different Postcrossing tag. This user had tagged me many times in different threads, all at once, did not message me to let me know, and surprised me with all of this. I keep track of whom I’ve tagged (since my memory is not so good), so that I do not overdo tagging the same person. In any case, though, I do love this postcard.

Hey, Doraemon! The card came to me from Indonesia, and the stamps & stickers tie right in, so you’ll have to scroll down & check them out. The sender writes:

Doraemon is my favorite cartoon too because they are funny and taught us about friendship. My fave character is Nobita & Shisuka.

Peanuts time! Cindi in Hawaii knows that I love the oldest versions of the characters, & she has sent me two of my favorite cards, featuring Pigpen, Lucy, & Schroeder. The scans of the backs down below show a beautiful patchwork of related stamps & stickers.

An extra serving of Peanuts, from a post-pal in Tokyo, Japan:

I love Spirited Away. Just saw it on the big screen again a few months ago for one of those two-night return engagements that happen sometimes, and I was blown away all over again. This card came to me from the same postcard pal as the one right above it.

Mickey and his band also came to me from Japan, in a tag in which we were to list the characters we’d like to receive. Horace Horsecollar was on my list, and as you’ll see at the bottom of the post, the card’s sender was surprised by my obscure choices.

Totoro here came to me from Russia, but the sender isn’t talking about Ghibli:

When I was a child, on TV on Saturday morning showed Disney cartoons. One of my favorites was Chip ‘n Dale.

The postcard teeming with Misters Men & Little Misses came to me from yet another postcard pal, this one in Brighton, England. Don’t miss the matching stamps down below!

The kitty packing heat was sent to me from Seattle, Washington, and the sender writes:

I don’t know the cat on the front of this card, but Strawberry Shortcake was a favorite of mine, back in the day.

She mentions Ms. Shortcake because she affixed a sticker of that character on the back of the card. You’ll not see her in this post, because by this time I had scanning fatigue, and that kind of thing just doesn’t make the cut. I’ll just share that it was an older version of the character, in shorts, flip-flops, and a floppy beach hat.

This Hello Kitty card did make the cut. It’s yet another card from Japan, and the back has great stickers, stamps & washi tape which, along with the card’s message, you can see below.

These funny little sea creatures came from Russia. The sender tells me that she loves Kinder toys, and that she used to play with them with her older sister when she was a child.

That little mouse came to me from Berlin, Germany, and the sender tells me:

I’m a 28 year old Russian girl, moved to Germany recently. Before that I spent 2.5 years in Moscow working as an IT engineer. Now I live in the center of Berlin, Mitte district. My office is in crazy and fancy Kreuzberg! There is a cool graffiti on our office wall: Putin, Obama, and Merkel closing mouth, eyes, and ears!

Hey, I found that piece of street art!

I feel like this came from a more innocent time.

Let’s finally get to the previously mentioned stamps, stickers, washi tape, and messages. So much good stuff!

I love, love, love that little squirrel sticker. The pair of cats on blue are awesome, too.

Okay, I’m down to one saved post waiting to be published, and this is it. This does not mean I don’t have more catching up to do; I’ve got a whole lot of sent & received postcards that never even made it this far! Well, I’ve added the bits that were missing from this post, and now here it is.

To Kranzberg, Germany, via Postcrossing Forum:

Sent to Oceanside, California, for a swap-bot trade of restaurant ad cards, this free card from a great Thai restaurant in San Francisco:

I’m more grossed out by this cereal box panel, sent to me from Bad Meinberg, Germany, in a food package postcard tag

The sender writes about the cereal:

It’s a new edition because it is baked with popcorn. It tastes good but not as good as I expect it. Do you have similar cereal combinations in the USA?

No–or at least not that I know of. What is grossing me out is that once I read the cereal brand is “Vitalis,” it sparked some basic relic of information in my brain (which I confirmed with an internet search): “Vitalis” was a gross hair product men used to use in the 1970s. Now I know why the cereal isn’t as good as that guy expected.

In trying to get back up & running here, I realize that I shouldn’t be considered about going through the effort of omnibus postings (although I am so backed up, some of those may well happen). I’m going smaller & easier here, with just the two postcards I wrote out today. Both will go out in Postcrossing Forum tags.

The “Mud Pies and Jelly Beans” exhibition at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, is pretty awesome, I think. It’s designed to look like a retro kitchen, and in addition to original food-related Peanuts strips, it displays character related lunch boxes (of which I had one) and food items (of which I ate a few). There was also a recipe card for chocolate chip cookies you could take with you!

**Instant update: In preparing the link to the museum, I discovered that the ongoing wildfires in the Sonoma County area have caused the museum to close indefinitely in order to clean the air & protect the collection. The status, as I write this on October 27, 2017, is that the museum is closed until further notice. I had already known that the fire claimed the home of Jean Schulz, the widow of Charles, and also so many of the couple’s treasures.**

The card goes out to a Snoopy lover in Nakatsu, Japan.

A Postcrosser in Nanjing, China, had this Jetoy cat card in her favorites, so I am sending it her way. I always enjoy seeing that I have a card that appears in someone’s collection of favorites.

Let’s end, as usual, with stamps, stickers, & washi tape. Do you have any favorites here? I always enjoy the shell stamps. I wish the Peanuts stamps were still available. At some point, I’m actually going to run out–but not today.

Since I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I thought I would start with a small, manageable junk, a mere three cards. The theme this time is “great toon cards,” my very favorite of this trio being that wonderful card of Donald Duck & his nephews. That really brought a smile to my face, directly from my mail slot!

All 3 of the cards this time came to me via Postcrossing Forum tags, and the Donald one is from Finland, thanks to an “offer” tag. That means I chose the card the sender would shoot my way–although I do not recall that. I participate in offer tags, but… the cards always end up being a surprise. The sender writes:

“Donald Duck is called Aku Ankka in Finland. There’s also a Disney magazine under his name, and it comes out every Wednesday.”

WOW–a weekly Donald magazine? I notice, when Disney comics are being published here in the U.S. (monthly when they are in print), that the most beautifully-drawn stories seem to be reprints from Finland & Italy. How amazing that there is such demand over there.

Speaking of things that seem to have greater demand outside of their country of origin, here come the Peanuts cards! Sally also came to me from Finland, and the sender wrote:

“Sally (Salli in Finnish) is asking if you would like to go out and have some lunch/dinner with her. She’s also saying that you can have the side of her toast which has more peanut butter on. How sweet! We don’t eat much peanut butter here in Finland.”

Finally, from Japan, come more of the Peanuts gang. The sender notes she wanted to send me a card a special Snoopy stamp & postmark. I’ll end with ALL the the stamps, stickers, & washi tape, and you’ll see the stamp & postmark on this last card are indeed special!

Hello there, it’s been a while! I am so behind in posting here. I’ve still been posting–that is, mailing & receiving mail–but other things have been getting in my way of keeping track of it all: more work, more tired, trying to fit in more time for reading & other important things. I’ve got a fistful of mail ready to go out, so let’s look at it before I send it off!

These all come from Postcrossing Forum trades, most from the offers threads, where a user gets to choose which postcard they will receive from a sender. I love looking through those, and discovering I have a card another user would love to receive. Let’s start with Lucy here, because there is a story. Not much of a story, but it’s as dramatic as things got this time around, so let’s go with it.

I got tagged by a possible recipient in Germany, who wanted me to send the card blank in an envelope, because he wanted it for a friend. This is exactly not why I joined Postcrossing. Postcards are meant to be written on, stamped, and dropped directly into the mail box. This fella knew that, because it’s now part of my Postcrossing Forum signature. Eventually, he settled on the idea that I could mail it directly to his friend–which is what I did (with a note that started off by saying so-and-so thought he would like this card). Off it goes to Berlin, Germany.

Let’s go on to more Peanuts, and also more Germany: Snoopy here was requested by a Postcrosser in Köln (AKA Cologne), Germany.

More toons, this time going to Selangor, Malaysia, to someone who likes children’s book illustrations.

Do you know Elephant & Piggie? They are by the wonderful Mo Willems, who also wrote Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. If you’ve not exposed yourself to his work, you are missing out.

Someone in Minsk, Belarus, wanted this windmill postcard from my offer album, so that is exactly what she shall get.

The “North Central Coast Wineries” map card was requested by someone in Yotsukaido, Japan. I told her I go to Monterey a lot, but I wasn’t at all aware of the wineries in the area before buying this postcard (at a gas station way down in San Luis Obispo County).

I took a nice little trip to Trinidad–CALIFORNIA–a few months ago. This card was requested by a Postcrosser in Hefei, Anhui, China.

The last card goes to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a “last movie I’ve seen” tag. I never saw “Maudie,” though I did see the preview. The last movie I’ve seen is Victoria and Abdul, starring Judi Dench.